Attributes of God
Senior 6 · General and Religious Studies
Attributes of God
Lesson 1 of 5
24 min
Many Rwandan names are short sentences about God. Habimana says that God exists. Niyonzima says that God is the living one. Nsengiyumva means "I pray to the one who hears". Hakizimana says that it is God who saves. Long before Christianity and Islam reached Rwanda, people spoke of Imana as the creator, and a proverb said Imana yirirwa ahandi igataha i Rwanda: God spends the day elsewhere but comes home to Rwanda at night.
A name like Nsengiyumva does what theologians do in books: it picks out a quality of God, here that God hears, and builds a relationship on it. This unit studies those qualities, the attributes of God, as Christianity and Islam teach them, the two faiths to which most Rwandans belong.
Definition
Attribute of God: a quality or characteristic that a religion teaches belongs to God, such as power, knowledge, love or mercy. Example: "God is merciful."
Revelation: what believers hold God has made known about himself, especially through scripture (the Bible for Christians, the Qur'an for Muslims) and, for Christians, through Jesus Christ.
Natural theology: knowledge about God that believers argue can be reached by reason and by observing the world, without scripture.
Monotheism: belief in one God. Christianity, Islam and Judaism are monotheistic. In Islam the oneness of God is tawhid.
Al-asma al-husna: "the most beautiful names" of God in Islam, traditionally counted as ninety-nine, such as al-Rahman (the Beneficent) and al-Alim (the All-Knowing).
Atheism: the view that there is no God. Agnosticism: the view that we cannot know whether God exists.
Important
Source A: the Qur'an, Surah 59 (al-Hashr), verses 22–24 (Pickthall, 1930)
"He is Allah, than whom there is no other God, the Knower of the invisible and the visible. He is the Beneficent, the Merciful. He is Allah, than whom there is no other God, the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One, Peace, the Keeper of Faith, the Guardian, the Majestic, the Compeller, the Superb. … He is Allah, the Creator, the Shaper out of naught, the Fashioner. His are the most beautiful names."
Source B: the Bible, Exodus 34:6 (World English Bible)
"Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, 'Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.'"
Both passages describe God by a list of qualities. In Source A, God names himself in the Qur'an; in Source B, God proclaims his own name to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Christian and Muslim scholars name three paths, and both faiths give the first the greatest weight.
Both traditions also warn that human words fall short. The Qur'an says "Naught is as His likeness" (42:11), and Isaiah has God say "my thoughts are not your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8). So when believers call God "powerful" or "loving", they mean it truly, but in a way greater than these words mean for people. Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Christian theologian, called this speaking by analogy.
Christian grouping. Many Christian theologians divide the attributes into incommunicable ones, which belong to God alone (no human can be everywhere or eternal), and communicable ones, which God shares in part with people made "in his image" (Genesis 1:27), such as love, mercy and justice. Another common pair is natural attributes (about God's being: power, knowledge) and moral attributes (about God's character: goodness, justice).
Islamic grouping. Muslim theologians distinguish attributes of essence (sifat al-dhat), which describe what God eternally is, such as life, knowledge, power, will, hearing, sight and speech, from attributes of action (sifat al-af'al), which describe what God does in relation to creation, such as creating, providing and forgiving. The ninety-nine names are also grouped into names of majesty (jalal), such as the Compeller, and names of beauty (jamal), such as the Merciful. Above all stands tawhid: "Say: He is Allah, the One!" (112:1).
| Tradition | How it speaks of God or ultimate reality |
|---|---|
| Rwandan traditional belief | Imana as the one creator, the source of life and blessing, near to Rwanda, approached through ancestors and rites |
| Other African traditions | A supreme creator with many local names, such as Ngai among the Kikuyu of Kenya and Olodumare among the Yoruba of Nigeria |
| Judaism | One God, merciful and just; Exodus 34:6–7 is read as the "thirteen attributes of mercy" |
| Hinduism | Brahman, the one ultimate reality, worshipped through many divine forms |
| Non-belief | Atheists hold that there is no God; agnostics that it cannot be known. Many ground ethics in reason, empathy and human rights |
Rwanda's Constitution guarantees "freedom of thought, conscience, religion, worship and public manifestation thereof" (Article 37). Studying the attributes of God in a mixed class therefore means describing each tradition accurately, in its own words, without mocking any belief or pressing anyone to adopt one.
Worked example: classifying an attribute
Task: Classify "God is merciful" in both systems.
Christian. People can show mercy too, though imperfectly ("be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful", Luke 6:36). So mercy is communicable and moral.
Islamic. Al-Rahim, the Merciful, is one of the most beautiful names and a name of beauty (jamal). Showing mercy to creation, for example by forgiving, is an attribute of action.
Task: Classify "God is eternal". Answer: incommunicable (no creature is without beginning) and, in Islamic terms, an attribute of essence: "the Alive, the Eternal" (2:255).
Tip
Quote both books, then compare. For any attribute, the strongest answers give one Bible verse and one Qur'an verse, say what they share, and add one difference in emphasis. Learn references in pairs, for example Exodus 34:6 with Qur'an 59:22.
Warning
Do not confuse a category with a ranking. "Incommunicable" does not mean "more important". Both faiths teach that God's attributes are united in one God, not parts that compete.
Important
Discuss. If human words "fall short" of God, can people say anything true about God at all? How do the ideas of analogy and of "Naught is as His likeness" (42:11) each answer this?
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: Figure 1, the tables, the worked example and the exercises. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
